shortly. >> the clerk: regular hearing for thursday, december 13-rbgs 2012. the commission does not tolerate outburst or disruption of any kind. if you'd like to speak on an agendized item please fill out a speaker form. and when speaking before the commission, please speak directly into the microphone and state your name for the record. i'd also ask that you turn off any mobile devices that may

sound off during the proceedings. i'd like to take roll. commission president fong, here. commission vice president wu, here. iana, present, boren, hillis, here, moore, hee, sugaya, here.

first on your calendar consideration for items proposed for continuance. item 1, for 1856 pacific avenue, discretionary reviews have been canceled. under your regular calendar, item 12, case 2012.1183t and z amendments to the planning code for fillmore street there's a request from the supervisor's office to continue this item to january 10, 2013. we have just learned that item 18 for case 2012.0928dd and d

for 2000 20th street all drs have been withdrawn. the only action in your continuance calendar is for item 12, if you so wish. >> president fong: is there any public comment on item 12 for continuance. >> commissioner antonini: move to continue. >> the clerk: commission antonini, aye, borden, aye, hillis, aye, moore, aye, wu, aye. 7-0. consenticle considered to be retoon by the planning commission and will be acted on by a single roll call vote. there will be no discussion

unless the public requests in which case it will be removed from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or a future hearing. you have two items commissioners, item 2 case 2012.05952(c) and item 3, 2012.6069(e) request for qunel use authorization. note that on november 29 following public testimony the commission closed the public hearing and adopted attempt to improve with -- with clear gazing and continue the item to today's date. >> president fong: is there any public comment on the two items on the consent calendar? seeing none, commissioner antonini. >> commissioner antonini: move to approve. >> second.

>> the clerk: on that motion, commissioner antonini, aye, commissioner borden, aye, hillis, wu, aye, fong, aye. so moved that passes unanimously. commissioners, we are going to call items 9(a) and b out of order. at 4 i 22 vincente street. >> ask the commission to recuse myself as we prepared materials for the project sponsor. >> move to recuse commissioner sugaya. >> second. >> on the motion to recuse, commissioner antonini, aye, commissioner borden, aye, commissioner wu, aye,

commissioner fong, aye. so moved. >> good afternoon, president fong, members of the planning commission, staff tom wang, discretionary review case. this is discretionary review involving demolition in a new building. the proposal is to demolish an existing two story vacant single family dwelling with a non-functional garage and replace it with a new single family dwelling, two story over garage. the report provided by the project sponsor, the department believes the -- demonstrated the

existing structure is unsound. and then the project also meets the majority of the 16 criteria on the residential demolition. therefore we would recommend the approval of the -- of this demolition. for the proposed new building, this is two-story over garage, the department does have some concerns and the reason said although the -- the design of the new building meets all the applicable provisions of the planning code, however it is not fully consistent with the residential design guidelines. in the staff report, there are three areas. we would recommend to be modified. first, set the third story back fully 15 feet from the main front building wall in order to limit its visibility from the

street. currently around the subject -- the majority -- or even the houses along the subject -- there are two story tall and the proposal is for a three-story building. therefore residential design guidelines calls for a setback of 15 feet from the main front building wall. second, reduce the width of the garage door from 12 feet to 10 feet and the reason is that -- is to prevent the replacement of dwelling to garage entrance from becoming a dominant facade feature. also, again, current houses -- surrounding houses on the subject about-face, they all have narrower garage doors such as 10 feet wide. at the last reduce the building mass of the third story either by setting it -- its rear wall back eight feet to be -- an

advantage between the depth of the rear building walls of the two adjacent buildings, or by creating a 204 square feet notch on the third floor, measuring from the third floor northeast corner 17 feet around the north side wall and 12 feet along the east side wall. staff has a little -- to demonstrate this number three modification. this is what the project sponsor proposed for the third story. there's a small notch that's

three feet wide and 15 feet deep and the department does not believe it's enough to address the existing -- open space, as well as the concerns raised by adjacent property owner at 414 vincente street. there are two options. option a, this -- it is in proportion to this map here, to set the rear building wall back eight feet towards front, and the -- area, that means the building mass would have been reduced. or option b, is to create a larger building notch over the northeast corner, and with the respective dimensions. and these three modifications, the department would recommend.

however, the project sponsor declined to take any modifications based upon the department's recommendation. over all, the department would recommend approval of the demolition and the new building with modification and the over all reason the project will replace unsound family -- and no -- parking with single family dwelling containing four bedrooms and off street parking. no tenants will be displaced as a result of the project because the building -- the dwelling currently is vacant. and, next, given the scale of the project there will be no significant impact on the exist capacity of the street or muni services. and finally although the existing structure is more than 50 years old, a review of the

historic resource evaluation resulted in determination that the existing building is not an historical resource. this would conclude our presentation and i will be happy to answer questions. >> thank you. project sponsor. >> thank you, mr. president, members of the commission. scott -- on behalf of the project sponsor. what the owners want to do here is take a building that has been vacant for over six years, this is a view of the building, and finally be able to replace it with a single family home that looks like this. it's been six years that the demolition permit and this rebuild permit have been -- the planning staff. in fact there was an earlier

demolition permit eight years ago for this property. when the current owners bought the property it was marketed as a teardown. they came in and promptly tried to do just that to get a betterblbetterbuilding for theme neighborhood. since they took a do it yourself approach they weren't able to comply with the requirements quickly and because the project went through the hands of four different planners with differing requirements it took this long to get to this point. on the demolition you have a report in front of you showing no significance, you have a soundness report showing it is well above the 50% threshold for demolition. the more significant issue in front of you is the new construction. again that permit has been out there for six years. and i must disagree with what mr. wang told you about the owner not accepting modifications. in fact the owner has made many

modifications since it first proposed this building to try to address the concerns both of the neighbors and of the staff. at the front originally this building was proposed with a ten foot setback. the staff asked that they move the front back, and they did just that, they moved it back 15 feet on one side, and 12 feet on the other side. and the staff has asked that it be moved 15 feet all the way. the reason for the set back is to make it in compliance with the residential guideline supposedly but if you look at the residential design guidelines that shows an illustration, which is almost identical to the building that is being proposed. a setback of the top floor to take it away from a street view, and there is no building on the street that has a 15 foot across the board setback so we don't think it's reasonable to ask us to move it from 10 to now the hybrid of 12 and 15 all the way

to 15 and take i way living space. second, the staff has asked for there to be a further concession on the side setback in the rear. the project sponsor did originally had no side -- well, there are side setback on the property in general that aren't required that project sponsor came in to begin with then they wanted setback on the rear right and project sponsor did agree to a three foot carve-out. now we've tried to be sensitive to the concerns of the immediately adjacent neighbor and if of course the setback on the right was necessary to preserve light and air for the adjacent neighbor and not unduly shadow their property we would have done so but shadow analysis shows because of the topography of the site there is no need for additional site set back showing

no shadow on the neighboring home except for one small period of time during one part of the year when there's a little bit of shadow on the rear wall. again the project sponsor has made concessions, even though they want a large house for a large family of three generations, they've cut back at the front and they've cut back at the side. the downslope is what i think -- well first, while we're talking about the rear setback, if you look at the other properties on the block face, you'll see that where we're proposing to go back to this level is no deeper than this building, this building, and this building. in fact the only property that doesn't go as far back as we're proposing right here was the immediately adjacent building which we've done the shadow analysis to show lack of impact. i'd like to -- to respect your

time, we have many supporters here for this project. i'm not going to have all of them come up and give comments but i would like them to stand, the supporters of the project so you can see the support that this has garnered. i want to conclude by saying we have done the historic resource evaluation that has been asked for. the project sponsor has completed the soundness report, complied with the planning code. we think it completely complies with the residential guidelines so we don't think discretionary review is warranted. thank you. >> president fong: open it up to public comment. i have speaker cards when i call your name line up on this side of the room. jennifer ma, jill astralia sustof, daniel mccarthy, john wellpachuck, scott bureau and --

>> hi. my name is jennifer ma, i live adjacent to this property since 2003, same time has the houses went on sale and i've been living there since then. what you don't see is pictures of the mess in front of my house that we constantly have to clean. i've lived there since 2003 and have not seen any of the people standing back there and i have neighbors that would be supportive of that. i want to state that clearly right now. so i live in the city most of my life, raised my kids in the house we live in now. we bought the house. we enjoyed the the look and feel of the neighborhood and want to continue to do that. we know the neighbors, my daughter is at preschool, we're vested in living in this area and we're engaged in the area, look out for each other and look forward to spending many more years living there. recently the lease has arranged a meeting to discuss the new

house before this meeting. they conducted the shadow study after we requested it. the concern of life was never addressed. so, yes, the shadow does not appear to have direct impact, but the fact that we have light throughout the day does remain a concern for us. as we look outside of our house right now, the back of our house is -- does already have some darkness. when i look back and imagine a house right next to me that's much longer and taller than what we have right now, i stare at complete darkness. that's what we're faced with if this house is proposed next door to our house right now. that's our bedroom. so our kids won't have light in the bedroom, and we won't, if this gets approved. i understand tom shares the same concerns we have. i represent my family, my husband and i and the kids. james, my husband has met with the planner, reviewed the recommendations and are supportive of the two options

proposed. so consider that you -- consider i recommend you consider the recommendations proposed. in that ultimately you will lead to more natural sunlight to our house we won't feel boxed in and our bedrooms will have a natural openness of the air quality and light that we have right now. last week, commissioner antonini had stated when you add something, you want to take it back. i thought that was a well-spoken remark and that should be applied to this particular new appraisal. also i know that we talked about the building of this home but i also think that we're concerned about the bottom of the hill. we have a foundation that right adjacent to the -- if that's demolished i think there should be some consideration to the demolishment and soundness of the concrete next to our home. thank you for listening to my concerns. >> president fong: thank you. next speaker please.

>> mr. president and commissioners, my name is jill artolla, and i side at 4008, my husband and i are native san franciscans and have owned our home for more than 30 years. we look forward to living there for a long time as well. i do not recognize many of the people that stood as our neighbors either. i am outside, gardening very often. we are concerned about the loss of light and view of open space after this large home is built. we would like to encourage you to reduce its size to preserve the light and open space that we now have. as you know, this neighborhood is prone to fog, and overcast days. there are few if any shadows on those days, only light. my garden and rear bedrooms also depend on the light. jennifer and james will be sandwiched between our home and

the lees and that will create a problem for them. we want to state when you add something, you take something else away. that is key here. our homes are typical modest west twin peak parkside homes. this replacement home is very large at 5500 square feet. my home and my hope is that by reducing the size of the second floor, loss of light will be minimized. if the garage level height is lessened, the overall building height would be less as well. please reduce the size of this home and keep as much of the light and open space for the mas and ourselves. we urge you to vote for the staff's recommendation. i would entertain hearing from those neighbors that stood and hear what they have to say being next door or across the street

from this property. thank you. >> president fong: thank you. >> thank you for the opportunity to speak. my name is daniel mccarthy. born and raised in san francisco, actually raised across the street at 415 vincente. i've been looking across at the old miller house and knew the millers well and now welcome our new neighbors in a brand new beautiful house. we'd love to see the old one disappear. for a number of years now, i look sd directly across at the millers and the mas and vincente street, from the front of my house is a very dark street, gets very little light. i look across at the mas and see how they have totally blinded by these huge horrible trees that come out of 422. i know that's not your issue.

but now what is being proposed is that they cut off all of the light on their north side, and put them in a canyon. and they have got two little kids that, vincente is not a good street to be playing on. it's a very busy street. and i'm sure that the kids spend a lot of time in the backyard. to put them in a dark cavern i don't think is right. as i said we totally welcome a new house. we welcome our new neighbors. i just don't -- i just ask that you follow through, and take the recommendation of your own planning department, and get this house built. thank you. >> good afternoon, mr. president. my name is scott berel here to speak in sport of the project and the project sponsor.

and i just want to talk a little bit about who and what is being proposed. i've known the project sponsor for a number of years. i know his family. and he is -- i think as the commission knows, he's a native of san francisco, born and raised here. and he wants to raise his family here. and it's very important to him. and he bought this project, this land, years ago, with the intent that this would be a place where he could build a house for a growing family. and he has worked with his neighbors, with the neighbors that will be his neighbors, to try to make it work for them, and for his family. he has two kids now. he has a baby on the way. and in this house, he's going to

have those two kids, and the baby that's coming, and he's also going to have his elderly parents, who are going to help raise those kids. and so he needs room for his house. and that's all that this is about, is for him to have a place where he can raise his family in san francisco, in a wonderful neighborhood. and you're going to have stability, you're going to have a family there that has been here for -- in san francisco for decades, and will be living here in san francisco for decades to come. and i also just want to make sure that the commission knows how much they have worked with the neighbors to try to accommodate their concerns. because, you know, they have done studies at the request of the neighbors. they did a shadow study at the request of the neighbors.

and the shadow study showed that their concerns about the shadow were not something that they really had to be particularly worried about. they have reduced and made reductions to their proposed project at the request of the neighbors. they have worked hard to make sure that their project is something that everyone can live with. but at some point, you know, i think that you realize that maybe it's not so much that people are looking for accommodation but they're looking for them to abandon the purpose of what the house was for. and this is a house that is for a family. and it's a large family. so i just ask that the commission keep that in mind. thank you for your time. >> president fong: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i hope that this house will be built soon. i work in san francisco. and i pass by this property all the time because my church is in

sunset, and also i have -- because i'm an insurance agent, so i drive around the neighborhood to take pictures of the houses. it seems this house has been vacant for so long it's an eyesore. when i pass by this house it caught my attention because it does not look good. and from the insurance agent's point of view that all the vacant houses, it has the intention to draw the squatters and interviewedders. and they -- intruders and they may go into vacant homes to do illegal activities. we hope this nice home, when i look at the pictures, it seems that it is conformed to the neighborhood and i hope that this project will be built soon so that it will not throw the bad people into the neighborhood. i feel that this nice project can improve and upgrade the whole neighborhood. thank you. >> president fong: thank you. is there any additional public

comment? >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is john waldchuck, trustee of the trust that owns the home next door, the 430 vincente. i have some concerns with regards to the anticipated construction. the drawings are sort of deceiving because it shows the back -- the rear of the house that is next door as a two-story portion and that is wrong, because it is a split level house. the back portion goes up five to six feet, and they are anticipating a -- going down and to keep the -- the roof